As leading professional commercial laundry experts, we know it’s not uncommon for many veterinary practices to be fitted with domestic laundry equipment.

However, while domestic machines might be the cheaper option for vets, unfortunately, they’re not designed to offer the disinfection cycles or wash capacities that will deliver the deep cleaning results you need.

Here, we explore some of the other reasons why your veterinary practice should ideally be kitted out with commercial laundry machines rather than domestic models.

Water Regulations Advisory Scheme (WRAS) compliance

Most domestic laundry appliances aren’t WRAS compliant, which means they’re not designed to ensure wastewater cannot flow back and contaminate the freshwater supply, which is a key stipulation of WRAS’ Fluid Category 5 guidelines.

Failure to be WRAS-compliant can result in veterinary practices being served with an improvement notice and potentially being closed down until the appropriate equipment is installed.

Breakdowns and repairs

Domestic machines may initially be inexpensive, but they do come at a price. They’re simply not built to be used non-stop to deliver heavy-duty cleaning, which means they’re often prone to costly breakdowns and parts failure.

Commercial machines, on the other hand, are specifically designed to handle larger loads and are much less likely to suffer breakdowns or parts failure. Overall, they tend to have much longer lifespans too which means much lower running costs.

Capacity

When you compare domestic laundry appliances with commercial models, one of the main, most obvious differences, is the drum size. And smaller drum size obviously means smaller, often less effective washes particularly when it comes to disinfection.

Commercial machines are equipped with larger drum sizes, which enables large, bulky items to be washed with ease and for load sizes to be increased, without having a detrimental impact on the machine’s performance.

Cleaning results

It’s essential that your laundry is cleaned properly, to the right standard every time. Having to rewash items is both a) costly and b) time-consuming.

Unfortunately, domestic machines are programmed for domestic use only, which means they don’t cater for disinfection. Commercial machines, on the other hand, feature specialised cleaning programmes that can be changed, depending on the load. For instance, you may have a particularly large wash or dirty or stained items. We can pre-programmed your commercial machine with specialist programmes suited to the needs of your veterinary practice.